There are multiple reasons that going 3D streaming = game changer, but let’s start with what CC3D sees as “The Top Five”:

1- High Speed and Unparalleled Performance

Tick, tick, tick… on the web, time is money. The faster you can load data, the more you can do with it! The key to successful, quick web streaming of information, especially CC3D buildings, is 3D Tiles. What are they? Cesium® 3D Tiles™ are an
open specification for streaming massive, assorted 3D geospatial datasets. The Tiles are making it possible for Cesium’s terrain and imagery streaming to also include other 3D content such as buildings, trees, point clouds, and vector data. The result? 3D content that’s optimized for streaming and rendering, using
glTF.

An example of streaming CyberCity 3D buildings on the Cesium Globe with 3D Tiles. Note the bounding volumes for tiles in a sparse grid layout. Each tile is one WebGL draw call.

Lightweight, yet metadata-filled, CC3D buildings stream quickly. Since they’re not bogged down with heavy texture files or too many polylines, they are easily viewed and managed on the cloud.

2- Cloud Living is Thrifty

Expense and license restrictions block the way for most web server environments on site to be economical, especially when cloud services are scaling at rapid rates. The chart below shows the surge in internet growth.

With the explosion of Social Web and Streaming Entertainment, the burgeoning Cloud Ecosystem is pushing the cost of on-premises hardware investments through the roof. See the staggering difference between cloud and on-premises monthly costs:

That’s one of the biggest benefits of moving to the cloud: Simplified user interaction that’s designed to work in web architecture. With this in mind, software companies design new architecture and deliver the Software as a Service (SaaS).

One of the giants in the geospatial software field,
Autodesk, does a great job of this. 3D maps are “plug and play”, giving GIS professionals and city planners more time out in the field, doing research or designing new programs—instead of spending hours on end learning how to publish their 3D on the web.

4- Data: Ubiquitous and Economical

It’s a revolution for GIS sensors and data capture—with Unmanned Vehicles (UAV’s), improved satellite data, and competitive aerial imagery as well as LiDAR Acquisition costs dropping. Google Earth’s “dropping off the Earth,” plus the clamor for all things Geo, spurred much more effortless access to data. CyberCity 3D models from a number of satellite stereo sources now— something that couldn’t be done just five years ago. See the CC3D building model of Abu Dhabi measured from stereo satellite data (Digital Globe) and displayed in Autodesk Infraworks 360.

No longer cloak and dagger, web-based business models are now much more accessible and user-friendly. Even government agencies, which were reticent to share their information, look to streaming web maps to brief not only employees and stakeholders, but the community at large. The continued expected explosion of the IT Cloud Service market is illustrated in the chart below: